


Climb You Like A Tree

by flawedamythyst



Category: Marvel
Genre: Bad Flirting, Escaping Hydra, M/M, Nymphs & Dryads, Tree Spirit!Clint, Violence against trees, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 21:09:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21259697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: While running from Hydra, the soldier stops to spend the night in a tree and makes a new friend.Written for Winterhawk Bingo 'Free Space' square. Huge love and thanks to Nny and CB for helping me brainstorm bad flirting.





	Climb You Like A Tree

The soldier was tired. He’d been walking through the forest as fast as he could for a night and a day, constantly glancing over his shoulder and breaking into a jog whenever the terrain was smooth enough, and now night was closing in again. He wasn’t sure he’d ever pushed himself this far before, and it felt as if every muscle was aching with exhaustion.

Logically, he knew there was no way the black-clad men could have kept up with his pace. He must have left them far behind hours ago and they wouldn’t be able to bring a vehicle into the thick forest, or spot him from a helicopter through the tree-cover. That didn’t settle any of the cold fear that filled him whenever he considered stopping, though.

He thought he must have done this before. Maybe not the part where he’d killed the scientists, ripped the door to the research chamber off its hinges and slaughtered anyone who tried to get in his way, but the running part. He thought he could remember this desperate need to get away, and the sick dread that they’d find him and drag him back.

Which meant they _had_ found him. They had taken him back, and wiped him and frozen him and set him up for more tests, confident that whatever they did, he belonged to them. He wouldn’t ever be able to truly escape.

No.

No, this time he was making it stick. He wasn’t going back there.

He stumbled over a tree root that he should have picked his foot up high enough to avoid, and growled with frustration. He couldn’t keep running, not without collapsing from exhaustion. He needed somewhere to spend the night, somewhere they wouldn’t find him.

There was a large tree ahead, heavy limbs reaching towards the sky. He flexed his metal hand, eyeing the width of the branches, then glanced over his shoulder again. He stopped walking, holding himself completely still and calming his breath until all he could hear was the soft sounds of the forest around him. Birds, the wind in the leaves, the soft skitter of a rodent in the undergrowth. Nothing that hinted at agents moving in on his position.

He took a deep breath and looked back at the tree, and decided to trust it.

Climbing was easy enough and he was able to get high enough to be hidden by the leaves. He settled on a wide branch with his back against the trunk, locking his hand around a branch so he wouldn’t fall, then started to slow his breathing, preparing for sleep. Just a few hours, then he’d get back to running.

“Well, that’s kinda rude,” said a voice.

The soldier startled, pulling a gun and pointing it in the direction of the voice before he’d even had time to see who was there.

“Whoa! Whoa! Okay!” said the guy, raising both his hands. He was on a branch that was a few feet higher than the soldier’s, crouching on it with perfect balance as if he had no fear of falling. “I get it, don’t surprise you. Just, this is my tree, and you didn’t even ask before coming up here.”

The soldier took a moment to actually look at him. He couldn’t remember ever seeing anything like him before, which wasn’t saying much with how his memory was now, but there was a feeling of shock that made him think there really was nothing in his past to compare this to.

The guy looked young, but it was hard to tell how young because his skin was weirdly textured, like he was covered in scars or had spent so long in the sun that it had all dried out. He wasn’t wearing much of anything, just a short skirt or loincloth thing made out of leaves and hanging low enough on his waist for the bones of his hips to be on display. He had a quiver of arrows slung at his hip and a bow over his shoulder, and more leaves in his hair. Or maybe the leaves _were_ his hair, the soldier couldn’t see anything under them.

“Who are you?” he asked.

The guy rolled his eyes. “I told you, this is my tree.”

The soldier tried to get that to make sense. He looked around at the forest, but it remained a sprawl of wilderness with no human habitations for miles and miles. “Didn’t know anyone owned land out here.”

“Nah, no land,” said the guy. He’d clearly decided that the soldier wasn’t a threat, because he dropped his raised hands so he could swing himself down to a lower branch, still out of reach of the soldier but close enough to see the weird green glow of his eyes. “Well, other than the soil between the roots, I guess. And I don’t own the tree, it’s _mine._”

This close, in the dim light of the setting sun, Bucky could see that his skin wasn’t scarred, it was gnarled like bark and tinged greenish-brown.

He dropped his gun slightly. “What the fuck?”

Had he known that some trees had guys living in them before the scientists had blasted away who he was? Should he know what this guy was, and how exactly he related to the tree the soldier was sitting in? Had he ever talked to someone like him before?

He had no idea. They’d taken so much from him, it felt like he didn’t even understand the world any more. He’d got away, though, he’d escaped and he was going to stay free, and he’d find out all this stuff and get to keep hold of it.

“That was kinda my question,” said the guy. “All the trees in this forest, and you went straight for mine, like you hiked all the way out here just to get all up in my branches.” He gave the soldier a suspicious look. “You didn’t, did you? I mean, you’re kinda hot, but I feel like there should be at least one date before you’re clambering all over me.”

“I didn’t know it was occupied,” said the soldier. “I needed somewhere to hide.”

The man tipped his head to the side and gave him a long, steady look that made the soldier think of slow decades passing by, but when he spoke, it was in the same light, easy tone he’d been using the whole time. “I guess I do have some nicely broad branches,” he said. “And a luscious, thick foliage.” He waggled his eyebrows as he leaned forward slightly and the soldier found his gaze catching on the thick curve of his biceps. Something warm and new coiled in his stomach.

He ignored it in favour of reholstering his gun. “I’ll find another tree,” he said, preparing to climb down.

“Oh, hey, no,” said the guy, “you’re good. How long are you going to be hiding? And, uh, who from?”

The soldier looked at the darkening sky. “I need to sleep,” he said, reluctantly. “There are men after me. They want to hurt me.”

The guy nodded. “Okay,” he said. “You do that, let me cradle you for a few hours, and I’ll keep watch.”

The soldier hesitated, but he really was so tired, and the idea of having someone keeping an eye out settled some of the spiky burn in his stomach.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

The guy shrugged. “No idea. You’re in my tree and I haven’t dropped you yet though, so…”

The branch under the soldier shuddered and then twisted slightly, as if in warning, and the soldier grabbed for a grip. The guy laughed, and the branch returned to being completely steady and unwavering under the soldier.

“Sorry, sorry, just wanted to prove a point.”

The soldier let out a very long breath. “You’re really the tree as well?” he asked, giving up on pretending he knew what was going on.

The guy’s smile grew wider. “Yup,” he said, patting the branch he was on. “I’m a tree-nymph. Not many of us around now.”

The soldier considered that. “Good to meet you,” he said, after a moment. “I’ve no idea who I am. Or what,” he added after a moment, because whatever those scientists had done to him had made him feel not quite human.

The nymph gave him another of those long looks, then turned to settle more easily on his branch. “Sleep will help,” he said. “Everything always looks better in the morning, when the sun is warming your leaves.”

The soldier didn’t have leaves, that was one thing he was certain on, but the idea of sleep was intoxicating. “You’ll keep watch?”

The nymph nodded. “Any men come out this way, they’ll regret it,” he said, and patted the bow over his shoulder.

The soldier took a deep breath, and made himself relax back against the trunk again. “Don’t drop me,” he said, letting his eyes fall shut.

The sound of a low laugh followed him into sleep.

****

He woke up to shouting.

“Hey, wake up,” hissed the nymph in his ear, but the soldier was already awake, pulling his gun and looking around.

He’d slept longer than he’d meant to and the sun was starting to rise, offering enough light to see the dark shapes moving through the forest, surrounding the tree.

“I figured if we stayed quiet they’d just walk right by,” whispered the nymph, “but they came straight to us.”

Shit, they were circling the tree. They must know the soldier was up there.

A tracker. There must be a tracker on him. Of course they’d made sure to tag their property.

“Come down, soldier!” shouted a voice, and one of the figures stepped forward. “No need for anyone to get hurt!”

The soldier shot him without bothering to shout back. He figured that said pretty much everything.

“Guess it’s the hard way, then,” said a second voice, and this one was smarter, keeping hidden behind a tree where the soldier’s bullets wouldn’t find him. “Zhelaniye.”

The soldier froze up. “No,” he croaked. The nymph glanced at him with a frown.

“Rzhavyy,” continued the man, and the words shouldn’t mean anything, they should be nonsense, but every nerve in the soldier's body was pinging, and he could feel dread settling in like an anvil in his stomach. He started shooting at the tree the man was hiding behind, but all he did was blow off shards of wood.

“What does it mean?” whispered the nymph.

“Semnadtsat'.” 

“Means they can control me,” croaked the soldier, and he could already feel his free will slipping away. 

“Rassvet.”

“Not on my watch,” said the nymph, fiercely, and he stood up on the branch, balancing on his toes and running down the length of it, long past the point where it should have been too slender to bear his weight. He pulled and fitted an arrow as he ran, then leapt across to the branch of the neighbouring tree, landing lightly.

The men clearly hadn’t been expecting anyone other than the soldier and they all shifted, shouting orders as a couple of bullets flew up after the nymph, but he was moving too fast for them. The soldier shot back as best he could, but the sequence of words was making his hands shake and sweat bead out on his forehead, as if he were already fighting a battle.

“Pech',” continued the man, not letting the commotion distract him.

The nymph made it to the trunk of the other tree, which was far enough over for him to have a line on the agent, around the tree he was hiding behind. The nymph pulled back his arrow and shot without even seeming to aim.

“Dye-” the word was cut off midway through with a finality that made the soldier relax.

“Fuck!” swore one of the other men. “Anyone else know the rest?”

There was a telling silence, and the soldier allowed himself a grim smile, shifting back on the branch and taking a few more shots. He hit at least one of them, but they were taking cover now, especially as the nymph was shooting more arrows down at them, making shots the soldier wouldn’t have thought were possible with such an old-fashioned weapon.

“Okay, then just open fire!” shouted whoever the new leader was. “Get that bastard down here! Either of those bastards!”

All the men still left standing turned their guns at the trees and let loose a barrage of semiautomatic fire. Leaves and wood went flying as they shredded the tree, and the nymph cried out in sharp pain.

The soldier didn’t have time to see if that was because of the damage to his tree, or if he’d been hit, because he was desperately trying to climb higher, get further under the cover of the leaves.

A bullet hit his calf and he felt his foot slip as he grabbed for a branch, then another bullet thudded into his shoulder and he was falling, crashing through green leaves until he hit the ground with a sickening thump and everything went black.

****

A lot of time had passed. There were certain things he knew now, that he hadn’t before he’d crashed down into the Potomac and then dragged a guy he only half-recognised out onto the river bank.

He knew his name was Bucky Barnes. He knew Steve Rogers was his friend. He wasn’t certain of much else, but he was willing to let it come back to him, piece by piece, until he had enough to go to Steve and be somewhere close to the guy he was expecting.

The battle at the Triskelion was still all over the news, so he kept moving, sleeping in abandoned buildings and eating whatever he could steal. He got himself some clothes that didn’t scream ‘fugitive’ and dug the tracker out of his arm, but it still felt like he was being watched, like a troop of Hydra agents could turn up at any moment to drag him back.

He hurried along the street, keeping an eye out for a car he could easily steal, one that didn’t look like it would be missed much.

He had to leave DC. He had to get away, far away, where no one would find him until he was ready, not Hydra, not Steve, not the police-

“Found you!” said a voice, and a figure jumped down out of a tree, landing in front of Bucky.

He started and pulled a gun, trying to work out how he could have been cornered so easily. He hadn’t even known he was going to walk down this street, how had this guy been lying in wait?

“Okay, we should stop meeting like this,” said the guy. He was holding a bow and dressed in the black of a SHIELD agent, and Bucky realised he’d seen his face before. He was the archer who he’d seen in the news reports, following around after Steve.

“We’ve never met,” he said, tightening his grip on his gun and glancing around to make sure Steve wasn’t close.

“Sure we have,” said the agent. “Long time ago, though, and I looked kinda different, so I’ll give you a pass on that one.”

“I’m not letting you take me,” said Bucky, because it didn’t matter when or where he might have met this guy, it only mattered that he got to stay free. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

The agent gave him a long look, and there was something in his eyes that looked far older than his appearance would suggest. “I don’t want to keep you captive,” he said. “Neither does Steve. I can understand you needing time to figure that out, though, so this visit is really just to let you know that whenever you’re ready, you’re welcome to come to Avengers Tower. And equally welcome to leave again, if you want to, no one will keep you against your will.”

Bucky couldn’t let himself believe that, so he just shook his head. “Leave me alone.”

The agent nodded, taking a step back and raising his hands in surrender. “No worries, I’m leaving now. Just wanted to make sure you knew. Steve just wants to be your friend, nothing more.” He hesitated then added, “Same for me. I told you I’d have your back, and I let you down. I’m not going to do that again.”

Bucky frowned and shook his head. “I don’t remember that,” he growled.

“I know,” said the agent, sadly. He turned back to the tree he’d leapt out of, jumping up to catch the lowest branch and pulling himself up onto it with impressive arm strength. He stood up on the branch, balancing as easily as if he were on solid ground, and tipped Bucky a wink. 

“Here’s hoping it all starts making sense to you, once you’ve had some time for the sun to warm your leaves.” 

Bucky had a sudden, unwelcome burst of familiarity, but he couldn’t match it up with any of the tangled memories he’d been slowly getting back. 

“See you around,” added the agent, and for a moment it seemed like he flickered, so that instead of a SHIELD agent, Bucky was looking at a green-tinged man wearing only leaves and that same cheeky smile.

“What the fuck?” asked Bucky.

“Yeah, you said that before,” said the agent, then walked down the branch and _into_ the trunk, passing through it as if he were nothing but smoke and disappearing.

“What the _fuck_?” repeated Bucky, but there was no one else on the street to answer his question.

****

It was six months before he realised that what the agent -Clint Barton, according to the TV- had said about Steve was true. There was no way the Steve he could remember would keep him against his will, if he went to the Tower.

It was another two months before he could bring himself to do it.

Some form of security system must have been alerted by his presence, because when he entered Avengers Tower the lobby was empty except for Steve, hovering awkwardly by the reception desk.

“Bucky,” he said in a neutral tone, not moving.

“Yeah,” said Bucky, feeling unaccountably tired now he was here. “Got space here for an old friend?”

Steve’s face creased into a smile and he stepped over to hug him, and Bucky let himself give in to it.

He’d expected to see Agent Barton almost immediately, but days passed, and Steve introduced him to the rest of the team in ones and twos, and somehow it never seemed to include him.

After a couple of weeks, Bucky gave in and just asked. “Doesn’t Hawkeye live with you all as well?”

“Oh, sure,” said Steve. “He spends all his time in his room though, we never see him. Well, I think Natasha does, but he’s not really the sociable type.”

That didn’t seem to match with Bucky’s experience of him. He hadn’t managed to remember the first time they’d met, despite how much had come flooding back over the last few months, but the guy had seemed pretty friendly and outgoing when he’d been talking to Bucky; it had seemed like he wanted to be Bucky’s friend.

In the end, he gave up on waiting for the guy to come out of his room, and went to see him. He knocked on the door, trying to tell himself it wasn’t intruding. 

There was a thump from inside, followed by a shout of, “Wait a minute!”

Bucky waited, and after a few seconds, the door was flung open by a faintly breathless Barton.

“Oh!” he said when he saw Bucky. “You! Hi!”

“Hi,” said Bucky, shoving his hands in pockets. Shit, why hadn’t he planned what he was going to say? “Just figured I’d come thank you for what you said. You were right, I did just need time.”

Barton beamed at him. “Of course you did, time heals all,” he said. “I mean, that’s kind of a useless trite sentiment, but it’s also true sometimes. You, uh. You remembered the first time we met yet?”

Frustration made Bucky scowl. “No.”

Barton tipped his head to one side and regarded him for a moment. “Maybe I can jog your memory,” he said, and opened the door wider. “Come in.”

Bucky went inside, feeling weirdly nervous but there was nothing strange about the room, nothing to justify the creeping sense of unreality that he was getting in Barton’s presence. In fact it was kinda bland, just a generic sitting room in neutral colours. He glanced around as Barton shut the door behind him.

“Oh, no, not in here,” said Barton. “This is just camouflage for when the others come by. Come into my real room, we’ll see if that helps you remember.”

He skipped over to a door, and Bucky wondered if he ever just walked anywhere. When the door opened, though, the sight on the other side wiped away any other thought.

His first impression was that it led outside, but they were on the 90-somethingth floor, there was no way there was a forest up here. He walked through after Barton and looked around, realising that the light was coming from windows that took up two entire walls, and the trees were all saplings planted in massive pots, branches brushing against the walls. One of the internal walls had row after row of hanging baskets on it, all of them trailing tendrils of plants down towards the floor.

“Holy shit,” said Bucky. 

“Yeah,” agreed Barton, and he grabbed at the edge of a platform that was right in the middle of the room, overhung with tree branches. He pulled himself up and turned to sit on the edge of it. “It’s not really the same as being back home, but it’s close enough.”

He shimmered, and suddenly he was...different. His skin was a rough, greenish-brown colour, and his clothes had disappeared until he was only wearing a cluster of leaves, and his eyes…

Shit.

The memory came back to Bucky in a wave. Running through the woods, and hiding up a tree, and the strange man he met up there, and then Hydra finding him, and-

“Fuck!” he swore. “They shot you!”

Barton blinked for a confused moment, then laughed. “Not me, just my tree,” he said, “and that was a few decades ago, we’ve both recovered.” He waved around at the saplings. “These guys all came from my tree, it’s doing just fine.”

“A few decades,” repeated Bucky, looking at the guy in front of him, who definitely didn’t look older than thirty. But then, neither did Bucky. “Okay.”

“You remembered, huh?” said Barton. “So you know how badly I fucked up?”

Bucky stared up at him, and shook his head. “How did you fuck up? I was the one who brought those assholes down on you.”

Barton rolled his eyes. “I said I’d keep watch, and I did a really shitty job of it. And then I tried to track you down and rescue you to make up for it and, well. That took long enough. I ended up having to come join the humans’ world, and even then it wasn’t me that found you, it was Natasha and Steve.”

He’d left his home in the forest and become a SHIELD agent just to try and help Bucky? “Seems like a lot of effort for a guy you met once,” said Bucky.

Barton shrugged. “I made a promise I didn’t keep,” he said, and then, with a wink, added, “And I always keep my promises to guys as hot as you are.”

Bucky just stared at him until Barton shifted self consciously. “Okay, no flirting then, that’s-”

“No,” interrupted Bucky. “That’s- the flirting is, uh. Fine. I’m just not great at responding any more.”

Barton’s grin spread across his face, and he kicked his legs where they were hanging off the platform. “Practice makes perfect.”

“I guess,” said Bucky slowly, and took another look at Barton’s bare chest and nicely-defined muscles. “You wanna try that by me again, then?”

Barton waggled his eyebrows. “I always keep my promises to guys as hot as you are,” he repeated, in a drawl.

Bucky walked closer to the platform and tried out one of the smirks that used to come to him so easily. “Is that so? Cuz your abs are kinda making some promises about how good they’d feel under my tongue.”

Barton laughed, and then hopped down from the platform, landing just in front of Bucky, so close that when he leaned in to whisper, “Then I guess I better give you the chance to find out,” Bucky could feel his breath ghosting over his skin.

“Fuck,” he muttered, and gave up on being smooth, pulling Barton in for a kiss instead. Barton wrapped his arms around him and kissed back, and his skin was softer under Bucky’s hands than Bucky would have thought, but still rougher than a human’s would have been. He couldn’t help wondering how his hand would feel on Bucky’s skin, and shuddered.

“Hey,” he said breathlessly, when they’d pulled apart. “Before you said you figured we should go on a date before I got all up in your branches. Want to do that now?”

“Sure,” said Barton, and it was definitely long past time Bucky started thinking of him as Clint. “Or we could just fuck now and save the date for another time?”

“Yeah, that works too,” agreed Bucky, and leaned in to kiss him again.


End file.
